::Free WiFi and Free iTunes:: [/tech/mac] (09:27)

When free wireless is available on every street corner, how do you differentiate yourself? What's next? The answer is services. Here in Austin, a number of wireless locations are now offering free music with their free wireless. The music being offered now is a sampler of bands playing at the upcoming SXSW music festival. It's a library of 600+ songs, a day and a half of great music, for free.

What is ingenious about the solution, in my opinion is the way that the music is automatically discovered thanks to the the rendezvous support in iTunes. If you open iTunes, the music is there. It just works. Zero configuration is the only way that a service on a local network can work, especially for public networks. Basic wireless access works because the networks can be discovered and configurations set through DHCP. Web caching and mail proxies (which are absolutely evil) work because they are transparent to the user. iTunes music sharing works because it happens automatically.

I'm not visionary enough to know what kinds of services might be next. But free services are the next step, and I'm willing to bet free music will be the first of the services. And, if local music services did take off, then how far away would a WiFiPod be? (please don't ruin my fantasy here by pointing out the size/power requirements of 802.11b)